Methods and systems disclosed herein relate generally to seafloor object detection and more specifically to 3D reconstruction.
Referring now to FIG. 1, prior art methods used, at best, a semi-automated approach to detect contacts and classify them. Method 50, for example, can require twelve man hours to complete for each six hour mission. Method 50 can include performing 51 a survey, manually or automatically detecting 53 a single contact, manually or automatically classifying 55 the contact, manually identifying 57 the contact, and continuing 59 the survey. After classifying 55 the contact, detecting 53 is passed off to either a dolphin or dive team for identifying 57. U.S. Pat. No. 6,134,344, METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR IMPROVING THE EFFICIENCY OF SUPPORT VECTOR MACHINES, Christopher J. Burges, published Oct. 17, 2000, (Burges), incorporated herein in its entirety, discloses a method and apparatus for improving the efficiency of any machine that uses an algorithm that maps to a higher dimensional space in which a given set of vectors are used. A support vector machine (SVM) is a supervised learning model that analyzes data and recognized patterns. For a set of inputs, an SVM predicts which of two possible classes forms the output. Each of a set of training examples is categorized according to its class, with the separate categories being separated by a clear gap. United States Patent Application #2012/0093381, METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR BRAIN TUMOR SEGMENTATION IN MULTI-PARAMETER 3D MR IMAGES VIA ROBUST STATISTIC INFORMATION PROPAGATION, Young Fan et al., published Apr. 19, 2012, (Fan) discloses the use of an SVM in brain tumor segmentation.
What is needed to provide enhanced sea floor object detection with classification as good as provided by short range optical imagery. What is also needed is an approach that would require a short recap of a mission, on the order of thirty minutes per six hour mission. What is importantly needed is an approach that would eliminate the step of passing off identification to humans. These improvements can greatly enhance the speed, accuracy, and safety of present operations in mine detection and neutralization.